ions on the Sunday morning which was now
approaching.

Early on that day the Maoris came round the missionaries' tent and began
their Matins worship. Ripahau had taught them hymns, and to these they
had themselves fitted "very agreeable" tunes. At 8 o'clock a great
service was held, with a congregation of 1,200 people. Then followed the
Holy Eucharist. School and evening service and conversation with anxious
enquirers at the tent door kept the missionary busy till late at night.

Three days later Henry Williams bade farewell to Hadfield, and started
off alone on a journey such as had never yet been attempted by a white
man in New Zealand. His schooner had not yet arrived, and he had
determined to travel overland to the Whanganui River, and thence through
the heart of the island to the Bay of Plenty. But when he reached the
Rangitikei he found more peace-making work to do, for he was met by a
fighting party from Taranaki who were bent on attacking the settlements
which he had just left. They carried gospels as well as fire-arms, but
this seemed to make them insolent instead of reasonable. Their leader
was an ignorant person who, on the strength of having once been at a
Wesleyan mission station, posed as a prophet and had invented a new
sacrament. Williams gave this man a severe rebuke, both for his
demeanour and for his heresy. So potent was the influence of "Wiremu"
that, after much debate, the northern army turned homewards, and the
Otaki Christians were left in peace.

On arrival at the Whanganui, great eagerness was everywhere displayed
for books and teachers. In a native canoe Henry Williams ascended this
noted stream, whose banks were then clothed in all their primeval
beauty. Not bush-clad precipices, however, attracted his attention so
much as the villages which nestled at their foot. In all of these he was
astonished to find Christian worship maintained, though no white teacher
had yet passed by that way. These _kaingas_ are all vanished now, and
their very names are well-nigh forgotten; but Pukehika (a few miles
below Pipiriki) afforded the traveller a memorable experience. At
daybreak on Christmas Eve he records that "_three bells for morning
prayers were heard from different hamlets in the neighbourhood._" On
reading this astonishing statement, one's thoughts fly at once to
Kinglake's well-known experience in the Arabian desert, when on a Sunday
morning he heard distinctly the bells of his village church at